Swift MT103 Beneficiary account with hyphens

Vizy

I am trying to submit and international payment to an account with FNB South Africa where the account number has hyphens. I have double checked this and previously made payments with Metrobank into this account so have confirmed that it is correct but when trying to submit a payment to this same account with HSBC, they will not permit hyphens in field 59, beneficiary account number. I have tried with numerous agents on HSBC telephone banking but their system simply does not permit hyphens. Is there a way to circumvent this, i.e. some kind of manual process I can request? Don't really want to open another bank account for 1 payment.  

flaneurs_lobster

If HSBC's system won't let those characters in then it's not clear that there would be a workaround with them.

Bit odd that HSBC can't pay into an account at SA's oldest bank, you'd have thought it might have happened before.

If you don't want to open another bank account per se, what about a Wise account?

grumpy_codger

Isn't IBAN needed for international payments?
UK sort codes have hypens too, but  a sort as a part of the corresponing IBAN, doesn't have hypens. 

PRAISETHESUN

What happens when you input the account number without hyphens?

Vizy

That works but grumpy_codger said:

Isn't IBAN needed for international payments?
UK sort codes have hypens too, but  a sort as a part of the corresponing IBAN, doesn't have hypens. 

BIC for FNB (First Rand) is FIRNZAJJ which is fine (actually better to use the clearing code 255005) but the beneficiary account number is where it gets stuck. Alphanumeric works but won't accept hyphens.

Vizy

PRAISETHESUN said:

What happens when you input the account number without hyphens?

Beneficiary specifically states not to drop hyphens

Vizy

flaneurs_lobster said:

If HSBC's system won't let those characters in then it's not clear that there would be a workaround with them.

Bit odd that HSBC can't pay into an account at SA's oldest bank, you'd have thought it might have happened before.

If you don't want to open another bank account per se, what about a Wise account?

Thanks, will have a look at Wise. Tried Revolut but it had the same Alphanumeric only constraint

Vizy

Vizy said:

flaneurs_lobster said:

If HSBC's system won't let those characters in then it's not clear that there would be a workaround with them.

Bit odd that HSBC can't pay into an account at SA's oldest bank, you'd have thought it might have happened before.

If you don't want to open another bank account per se, what about a Wise account?

Thanks, will have a look at Wise. Tried Revolut but it had the same Alphanumeric only constraint

Wise is even worse, numeric account number only permitted

Vizy

Vizy said:

That works but grumpy_codger said:

Isn't IBAN needed for international payments?
UK sort codes have hypens too, but  a sort as a part of the corresponing IBAN, doesn't have hypens. 

BIC for FNB (First Rand) is FIRNZAJJ which is fine (actually better to use the clearing code 255005) but the beneficiary account number is where it gets stuck. Alphanumeric works but won't accept hyphens.

Sorry, South African Banks do not use IBAN

eskbanker

Vizy said:

PRAISETHESUN said:

What happens when you input the account number without hyphens?

Beneficiary specifically states not to drop hyphens

Beneficiary might not be aware of their incompatibility with international payment protocols?

Vizy

eskbanker said:

Vizy said:

PRAISETHESUN said:

What happens when you input the account number without hyphens?

Beneficiary specifically states not to drop hyphens

Beneficiary might not be aware of their incompatibility with international payment protocols?

As I mentioned previously Metrobank were able to process this when I still had an account with them so it does work. It just seems that HSBC and others implement constraints in the account field. I guess for some sort of error checking.